


This is a love story

by theperksofbeingabooklover



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Enjolras is Laurie, Gavroche is Beth..., Grantaire is Jo, I'm Sorry, Low key a modern Little Women au, M/M, Pining, Smitten Enjolras (Les Misérables), Y'all See Where This Is Going
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24632305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theperksofbeingabooklover/pseuds/theperksofbeingabooklover
Summary: Enjolras and Grantaire grow up next door neighbours. It is clear to everyone but Grantaire that Enjolras has always been in love with him. It is clear to no one but Grantaire that Grantaire is irrevocably in love with Enjolras.Or: a low key modern Little Women au I meant to finish for Barricade Day.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	This is a love story

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhh I'm so nervous about posting this. It really needs an edit.... but? I'm still quite proud of it. I started writing this to confront some of my own fears of growing up and the end of childhood. I hope you enjoy? Will I regret this the second I post it? Yes. Am I posting it anyway? Looks like it.

Enjolras was a peculiarly dispassionate child. The world beyond his father’s house was far-off and insignificant. His only ambitions were of climbing the highest trees, getting a puppy, becoming a member of Club Penguin. And yes, there was another wish- more secret and more sacred. But did he really expect to find a best friend?  
He wouldn’t have called himself a lonely child- he had his parents-, but the house was big and mostly empty, and his imagination never seemed strong enough to breach the gaps existing there.  
At school, he came off too strong. His charisma came later. Here, in its infancy, the boys scorned him for how desperately he tried to fit in. 

Marius Pontmercy wasn’t very popular at their school either. Similarly rich, similarly excessive in his attempts for friendship, but unlike Enjolras he had passions. Learning something, he’d immediately try to discuss it, only to discover that at best everyone disagreed with him, and at worst, that nobody cared. As a result, for his 10th birthday, he didn’t just invite everyone at their rich private school to go to the football club for a disco, he also asked the class at the state primary school. 

Enjolras hadn’t wanted to go. He’d rather play Club Penguin on his dad’s laptop or read his dogeared copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. He’d yet to move on from it, sticking to the story he liked. He doubted the later books would have another monster like the basilisk, and so he stuck with the book he enjoyed, fearing the whole series would be ruined if he kept on. His secret wish stopped him though. The house with his parents was safe, he was perfectly content there, but there was the possibility that enticed him to go to the disco.  
Marius could be a kindred spirit. They both spent their breaktimes reading, both were alone on the playground-

Marius was not in fact a kindred spirit. Apparently, he’d found a book on Napoleon in his dad’s library and his conclusions about the worth of the man were far from Enjolras’s own. Enjolras didn’t even dignify him with a response. He stole some of the crisps set out and made a hasty retreat from the room.  
He pulled his book out but couldn’t focus on the page. He felt a little like he’d blown his one shot at friendship. The disco was hot and sweaty, Katy Perry playing loudly as everyone watched in awe the one kid who had light up shoes. The shoes didn’t interest him. He wanted something far brighter- but so much more unattainable.  
He was young, you see. He didn’t understand this hole in him that threatened to swallow him up- he thought everyone felt it. A want to fill the silence overwhelmed him, but he could do nothing.  
He hears a faint cheer, probably signifying that the glowsticks had come out, but somehow all these childish lights held no interest to him.  
He becomes aware of a boy sitting very near him; almost too near. It’s not until the boy actually leans over and actively tries to read over his shoulder that he tries to stop him.  
“Who are you?” he asks, snapping the book shut.  
“Grantaire,” the boy introduces, “I read that one a while ago, but I think the fourth one’s the best.”  
Enjolras, surprised by the very idea that a book could exist that surpassed the second one, blinks. “Well,” he starts stubbornly, “I obviously haven’t got to it yet, have I?”  
“You’ve got it to look forward to though!” is Grantaire’s cheery response.  
He only huffs, opening the book up again. After a few minutes of determinedly staring at the same page, he looks over at Grantaire. He hasn’t moved.  
“Why aren’t you in there, dancing?” he asks.  
“Haven’t found the right partner. Also, this party’s the worst.”  
For some reason, Enjolras flushes. “I could-?” he stutters, uncertain why.  
Grantaire grins.  
So they dance. Taylor Swift’s ‘Love Story’ echoes through the wall, and so in a slightly stuffy corridor of a football club, Enjolras finds the kind of light he was looking for.  
They talk about Harry Potter and Club Penguin. Grantaire gives him a long list of books he needs to read and Enjolras realises with a heavy need, that he wants to be Grantaire’s best friend. He’s magnetic- the easy smile he bestows on everyone who walks through, but the focus of his eyes that never strays from him. The messy curls, how he seems to really listen.  
“I can’t believe I’ve gone my whole life not knowing I had a kindred spirit so close by,” Grantaire says when they sit down. They’re leaning against opposite walls, legs entangled. On Enjolras’s wrist is a glowstick Grantaire has given him. He wants to wear it forever.  
It is here that they’re interrupted. Another boy walks in calling “R!” and stumbling, “I don’t feel very well.”  
Grantaire leaps up. Enjolras tries not to feel awkward. “This is Combeferre,” Grantaire introduces, “he’s my brother and he’s awesome- he likes Club Penguin so you’ll love him but he doesn’t like Star Wars so I’ll stay your favourite.”  
“I want to go home” Combeferre says sadly. “I hate parties. Courfeyrac’s gone to Eponine because she loves Star Wars so apparently she’s the coolest, even though I’m his best friend and she’s just our sister. But my stomach hurts and I don’t want to dance with them.” He finally notices Enjolras. “Oh hi,” he says.  
“we can’t leave” says Grantaire.  
“I thought you weren’t having fun?”  
“Oh I’m not”, Enjolras tries not to feel hurt, “ but doesn’t this party feel like something we must experience to the full? It may have been awkward and boring but look at the friendship we just made! How many of life’s great wonders are missed by those who leave parties early?”  
Enjolras sits in awe. Combeferre just looks longsuffering  
“Why don’t you call your mum?” Enjolras asks him, “if you feel sick, she’ll come and make you feel better.”  
“Mum’s at work,” Combeferre explains, “and dad’s on a work call till 8 when this ends.”  
“I could give you a lift?” Enjolras offers, “my dad won’t mind.”  
“Don’t you want to stay?” Combeferre asks.  
“Nah,” he looks up at Grantaire, “this party’s the worst.” 

This is how they find out they're neighbours. Enjolras doesn't like seeing how his family’s stately home looms in the distance of the small cottage they direct his dad to. Grantaire just seems ecstatic. "We're neighbours!" he shouts, and Enjolras can't help grinning back at him. 

The sky was blue before Enjolras met Grantaire. After, it was infinite and incomprehensible and far more wonderful than Enjolras could ever have hoped. It doesn’t help his school life though; he still feels lacking in something everyone else seems to have, but he sees Grantaire every day afterwards and that makes it better. Grantaire, he learns, loves the world and everything in it. Spending time with him is like basking in the sun even in the darker months. He’s summer in a bottle, he thinks when he gets home to the darker house, like the taste of dandelion wine. “The world’s so very wide, isn’t it Enj?” he says one day, “isn’t it divine that we get to exist in such a place? Knowing that everything is before us?”. Enjolras can only ever sit and nod.  
“Grantaire’s got three siblings”, Enjolras tries hinting to his father, “that must be nice.”  
His father only says something about the chaos it must cause.  
When Enjolras sits at the dinner table next to Grantaire, with Combeferre across from him, always smiling, Eponine on the other side, sullen and sarcastic, and little Gavroche next to Combeferre, small but terrifyingly cheeky, he wonders if he’ll ever get more than second-hand warmth. His own home seems ever colder. 

But Grantaire’s brilliance never seems to stop. He’s a fan of big words and keeps a journal in his pocket filled with every new word he finds. He loves reading, and even finds fun in his French homework. He doesn’t like maths- “all that logic”- but he was good, brilliant, at it all. Enjolras could only hope to be his equal through vigorous studying, all in an open ploy to impress him. The warmth of Grantaire is enough, he tells himself. Pressing himself against the family, even if he never truly enters it. 

He spends the summer before secondary school begging his dad to let him go to the state secondary school. He cites the 'character building' associated with a lesser upbringing, how he hates the spoon-fed information offered for his SATs. He admits piteously that he's really very unhappy at the school. He even mentions how guilty he feels knowing how much his parents are paying for him to do something he doesn't enjoy. Eventually, it works. 

But when he arrives in September, new uniform on, tie tied by his mother, he realises Grantaire's magnetism was not exclusively to lure him in. His first sight of Grantaire is him surrounded by a whole hoard of friends. The girls appear caked in makeup that ages their youthful faces, and the boys look rough and unfriendly. He wonders if this was all a big mistake.  
Combeferre spots him though, and welcomes him with a hug. They're not as close as he and Grantaire but he loves Combeferre like a brother all the same. "Grantaire's gonna be so happy!" Combeferre tells him.  
When Grantaire catches sight of him, he completely freezes. Finally, he shouts, "it's my Enj!" and Enjolras flushes to the tips of his ears. The nickname has started relatively recently and he's yet to grow used to the butterflies it gives him. 

What Enjolras realises is that though Grantaire is popular, often surrounded by a crowd of the 'cool' kids, all adoring of his jokes and charming optimism, he was cool in a way that the popular kids lacked. He was nice, effortlessly funny, magnetic and brilliant in every way. He was top of every class straight away, but it didn't give him an ego. He confessed to Enjolras later that he just had a yearning to learn that made him insatiable. He'd spent his “formative years” buried in any book he could find and when he discovered Wikipedia there was nothing on earth that could stop him. Grantaire was brilliant, and Enjolras, impressionable and awkward, wanted to be exactly like him. Either that or just spend every moment with him.

The years float away. He enjoys them, but he feels like he’s on a footstall trying to catch stars with a net with every day that passes. Youth seems fleeting even as he lives it.

They do their GCSE exams and Grantaire grins when they both excel. Enjolras wants more than these brief splashes of colour though. He wants to remember every single day with Grantaire. The future is looming- like Grantaire had said- but the future promises partings that he doesn’t know if he can take. 

Grantaire disappears in August. Enjolras is told nothing about it, and no one answers him when he asks. They just look sad, pitying- but not towards him.  
It’s by accident he looks at the local newspaper. The words seem more like fiction than fact. They tell, without emotion, about a young boy being hit by a car. They write candidly about the dangers of drunk driving.  
The words fit into his head. He can read them. He can register the accident. What doesn’t make sense is the name Gavroche as the victim and the familiar face that grins out of the picture.  
He can’t register that Gavroche is dead.  
He didn’t know Gavroche very well. The youngest of Grantaire’s siblings, full of mischief who’d always wanted to play with him and Grantaire. He wishes he’d let him now. Enjolras had known Gavroche best through Grantaire. “He’s my kid brother, and a git,” Grantaire would say, but he’d be smiling fondly through the insults. So many of Grantaire’s dreams had been about proving what their family could do. Proving it to Gavroche.  
The ache of his loss is of unfamiliarity. A space left clear on a kitchen table. 

September comes. He goes to school. He sees Grantaire but Grantaire no longer smiles. 

Grantaire switches out of a level art and drama to do maths and physics. He can’t get out of English. He won’t speak to Enjolras even as he lets him sit next to him. 

October. November, their autumn report. Grantaire is getting Bs when everyone thought he’d get A*s. Teachers talk to him. Enjolras talks to him. No one gets a response. 

December. The world lights up in its yearly ritual. Halfway out the dark with a celebration of humanity. Enjolras buys Grantaire a book, and knocks at the door. No one opens it. There are no lights on in the living room. There’s no tree, no lights. The warmth of Grantaire’s home is now cold as ice. Enjolras doesn’t want to touch it. He leaves the book on the doorstep and goes home. 

He speaks to Eponine but-  
“just because you’re in love with him doesn’t mean you can fix this!” Eponine shouts on the porch, and the anger looks wrong on her face. It’s not anger though, he realises belatedly, it’s pain.  
“I just want to help.”  
Eponine softens a little. She says, “I’m not sure he can be helped. He spends all his money drinking with Montparnasse. He doesn’t care about school. I-“ she pauses then, “I’m worried he doesn’t care about life.”  
“I just want to help,” he repeats, “is there anything I can do?”  
“I don’t know.” She says, “I really don’t. Just- show him there’s good in the world, if you can.” A shout comes from the house, she turns and then back to him. “I’ve got to go,” she says. She shivers slightly but not from the cold. She turns to go.  
“Eponine!” he calls her back, “I’m so sorry.”  
She gives a well-practiced smile. “Thanks.” And then she’s gone. 

Gavroche becomes a tiny headstone with fresh lilies every day. “we can’t afford it,” Eponine tells him, “well, we couldn’t before”. Enjolras knows without her saying that the money that fed and clothed and provided for Gavroche, was being used to provide him a better rest.  
It’s the coldness of the stone that really shocks him. Gavroche, mischievous, small, with a cheeky grin always lurking outside Grantaire’s bedroom. Gavroche, letters and “brother” and cold stone. 

He tries going out with Grantaire and Montparnasse. Drags Grantaire home, stumbles through the door. Smiles sadly at Eponine, whispers goodnight to Combeferre, tucks Grantaire in, and freezes when he says “stay.”  
So he climbs in. Returns to boyhood. Very nearly.  
“I don’t think love is made in the bedroom” Grantaire slurs next to him. Enjolras laughs helplessly.  
“No?”  
“No. But I would’ve let you fuck me, even if it’s not.”  
Enjolras freezes. Grantaire is drunk. Enjolras has never been anything but rational (that’s a lie, he is always irrational where Grantaire is concerned)  
He never goes out with them again. 

Grantaire looks tired every day. His breath smells of alcohol, and cigarettes and drugs he couldn’t even name. Time slips by but he almost wants it to. It’s hard to watch him like this. 

Eventually Enjolras has enough. Grantaire sits silent next to him. The teacher talks about Shakespeare, about the wonders of language, about how the universalities of human experience can be found in every play if you only look. The Grantaire of a year ago would’ve eaten it up, swallowed it, and came back the next day an expert.  
This Grantaire sits silent.  
“Have you thought about uni?” he asks him when they’re told to analyse a passage, “you’ve got so much to offer the world, really-“  
Grantaire looks back at him. In that same monotonous voice, he says “but the world has nothing to offer me. And even if it did offer me something, I don’t want it. Gavroche was small and bright and cheeky, a bit wild, and he didn’t deserve to die. No one does. This world is just a messy torture chamber with an unhappy end.”  
The conversation ends.  
There’s no solace that Enjolras can offer. Only a hand, that Grantaire grips painfully tight. And later that night as Grantaire climbs in through his window, tear stains on his shirt.  
“I’m a mess” Grantaire complains when the tears have finally stopped, “a mess and I never get things right. Do you still like me?”  
Enjolras smiles. His heart clenches.  
“More and more” he says. 

Grantaire never really blooms again. He starts studying again though, and he starts smiling. Enjolras loves him. It’s not a sudden thing, just a gradual realisation. He loves him. He can own up to that.  
But Grantaire is still sad most of the time. Everything can set him off. Anything, everything. One night they talk about books and Enjolras gently tries to rib him about how many of Grantaire’s favourites are love stories.  
“I like love stories,” Grantaire admits with a laugh, “they’re fluffy and stupid but, and I’ve thought about this a lot, I think humans are at their best when they’re in love”  
His voice turns so sad by the end that Enjolras has to cut in. “Explain Wuthering heights then!”  
Thankfully, Grantaire does laugh, but he remains earnest. “Okay, yeah, fuck Heathcliff and Cathy but what about Hareton? He’s wild and he doesn’t know how to read and then he falls for young Cathy and he learns to read for her. They plant a garden together. It’s all oh look at the growth, the creation of new things in contrast to the death that surrounded the big relationship!”  
Enjolras loves Grantaire like this. But he also hates how bright his eyes look, how close they always are to tears.  
“My point though,” Grantaire continues, “is that I’m not living in a love story, no matter how much I wish I was. I’m living in one of those awful pretentious pieces about misery and the wells we create in our hearts trying to dig our grief out”  
“I could fill it,” Enjolras says. But even as he says it, he’s thinking about all the empty bottles in Grantaire’s room. How impossible it would be to fill up all that empty space.  
“I think you’ve been reading too much D H Lawrence” Grantaire says finally.  
Enjolras hasn’t read any. He tries to read every book Grantaire mentions but he’s got stuff to do and D H Lawrence is the weird kinky one. He only laughs, and cherishes the light in all the dark of Grantaire’s face.  
As he watches Grantaire leave that night, he wishes he’d read them all. He wants to get the reference, to understand Grantaire completely. 

When they do confront it properly, all the grief that’s welling up inside him, it’s a small thing.  
“Do you believe I’ll meet him again?” Grantaire asks finally one night.  
“Religion’s only seemed to confine me,” Enjolras admits, “but I hope so.”  
Grantaire nods. A blade of grass tickles his foot. “Combeferre’s the best help. He says what will come will come no matter our beliefs. He says it’s bold of us to assume we know everything either way.”  
“That’s Combeferre for you” Enjolras says with a smile, “always the best.”  
“apart from you” Grantaire grins back, nudging him with his foot.  
Enjolras just smiles, basking in the sunlight finally appearing through the clouds. 

The trouble is that although the wonder’s back in some form, the drive isn’t there. he loves the books he studies, but his painting of his future is a bland colourless thing. Shapeless too.  
“How about Durham?” Enjolras asks, “best UK university for English Lit- you told Gavroche you were thinking about it when he said you lot would never go anywhere good. I believe in you, and I really think if anyone in our lit class has a shot at it, it’s you.”  
“The dream fades without the people you dreamed it for” is Grantaire’s response. But Enjolras knows- knows with the intimacy of all these years, that he’s planted a seed in that bottle somewhere. And summer could still grow again. 

After a comparatively joyless summer, they move to year 13, their final year at this school. Grantaire becomes brighter, decides he’ll try for Durham, and Enjolras finds it harder and harder to hide how terribly in love with him he is. 

One day Grantaire says “how am I supposed to live in a world where I’ll never be loved as much as Gilbert Blythe loves Anne?”  
Enjolras only rolls his eyes.  
At home he looks up Gilbert Blythe, finding a book series and a TV show. Once he’s finished both he can confirm that someone does indeed love Grantaire as much as Gilbert loves Anne. And though his own Anne is. A little wilted, he loves Grantaire with and without the wondrous imagination that coloured his childhood. He blushes when Grantaire asks him about his thoughts on it, excited and so very the Grantaire he first met. He doesn’t tell him though. He just can’t get the words out. 

Judging by their friends’ comments though, it seems Grantaire is the only one who doesn’t know. 

“Why couldn’t I have one of those small delicate noses?” Grantaire complains suddenly one day as their studying in Enjolras’s sprawling garden. No one but Enjolras looks up. It’s a complaint he’s made many times before. “Look at Enjolras’s cute little one! I’m never going to be loved looking like this.” Enjolras’s ears flush red. He buries his nose back into his politics textbook. But he knows, despite the humour in Grantaire’s voice, that the complaint is only partly theatrical.  
Courfeyrac through seems to be joining in. “Oh piss off R!” he says, “you’ve got your love life all set. Pity the rest of us.”  
“All set? I have no love life. More’s the pity”  
“As soon as you get your head out of that book you’ll see” he says, “you’re the one participating in a grand love story worthy of all those books you read. Pity us,” he repeats, “the poor secondary characters doomed to two dimensional affairs just to spice up the scenery.”  
Grantaire just looks confused. Doesn’t seem to notice the crimson Enjolras has turned, how determinedly he won’t meet his eye. 

Quietly in January, Grantaire asks him to read through his personal statement. The deadline is frighteningly close, and he nearly cries as he reads. The personal statement is weird. He talks about stories and literature and the books he loves, but something strange happens. There’s wonder in it, traces of magic and the pleasures of existence. In short, the personal statement is written by a Grantaire that Enjolras no longer knows.  
“It’s brilliant” he tells him honestly.  
Grantaire smiles.

”I wonder if they know they’ve accepted a ghost” he says when the offer inevitably arrives. 

They take their exams. Grantaire stresses and complains and grins after every single one. Enjolras is unsure about how English went for him- the question had thrown him off and they’d always been encouraged not to project their own feelings onto characters- but a question on unrequited love, and a poem that made him ache- he couldn’t stop himself.  
Courfeyrac arranges a party after they’ve all finished. When he arrives, he’s tired out from sociology- three hours long- but he sees Grantaire already ranting about maths, and all the weight of the day melts off him.  
He smiles when Grantaire looks up, but the bottles beside him worry him. Grantaire stumbles over. He wants to dance. He wants to dance with Enjolras. He pulls him through the house, propelled by the alcohol or some force of energy that he cannot understand.  
They stop near a window and Grantaire hugs him. He can feel tears on his shirt, and the powerlessness he’s felt for two years returns. Hold him, he reminds himself, all you can do but the best thing. Hold him.  
And Taylor Swift sings in the distance. The sob turns into a laugh. The hug turns into a slow dance.  
Their reflection dances too in the fogged-up window. “Look at us,” Grantaire slurs quietly, “we’re dancing in the corridor.”  
But they’re not in a corridor. They’re in Courfeyrac’s bedroom. Grantaire is right in a way though, the two of them are always in the corridor. Between things. Miscommunicating.  
Enjolras looks at the window. The glass is unclear, almost dishonest. They appear two figures swaying but it’s unclear if they’re dancing. They look like they’re standing. Movements so faint it’s like something else is swaying them, the wind through the open window.  
Enjolras steps back. Grantaire frowns.  
The moment doesn’t feel right, but the lights are warm, almost gold, and he’s tired of being silent.  
“I love you.” He admits, the words soft enough to savour the breath of them. How right they feel in his mouth.  
But Grantaire sobers. He’s pushed away. Grantaire frowns down at him. “Don’t say that,” is not the response Enjolras has dreamed of, “you don’t love me Enjolras. You just don’t want to let go of your childhood.”  
The warmth of the room seems too hot. The yellow that lights it seems rotten, too bright.  
The words aren’t angry or spiteful of course, it’s the honesty. Grantaire believes it. That’s the pain.  
And as Grantaire leaves, Enjolras can’t even cry.  
He’s left with the glass, the cold air from the window, the ache in his chest. A single figure reflects back at him, crystal clear, and alone. 

Enjolras thinks that’s the end of it. He cries alone in his bedroom. He thinks this bright fragile thing called friendship is lost in one slurred night. But the next day Grantaire’s there and summer flows by like wine from a bottle, and by the end the bottle, full of all joys, is empty. 

And then here they are saying goodbye. Standing on the porch of Grantaire’s house. There are too many words and not enough. There is silence, and smiles that try to make up for it.  
“I’ll miss you” he says, and then leaves his mouth open, a conversation on pause. He wants to try again. He wants to say he loves him. He wants to say his world will be a lot darker without Grantaire. He wants to say, “Grantaire, I’ve loved you since we were ten. You are my favourite person in the world”, but none of it comes out. He just shifts into a smile which Grantaire readily returns. 

He wonders later what he would’ve said had he known he wouldn’t see him again for four years. 

He leaves for Edinburgh, off to the future. Grantaire’s house looks so empty as they pass it. There’s still Eponine of course, but that bright house that lit up his youth has never looked smaller. 

Of course, Enjolras cares nothing for league tables, but it seems strange that with all his ambition he goes to a worse university than Grantaire. Edinburgh’s brilliant. It’s everything he ever wanted- the course is fantastic, the professors inspiring, but Grantaire is at the best university for his subject. He’s so very proud.

He takes out his phone. He clicks on Grantaire’s name. Fuck it, he thinks. Be like Grantaire, bold, confident. Fuck it. He types out his message. 

Grantaire, I have loved you since we first danced in that stupid football club party corridor. You remind me of childhood, of course you do, but you’re more than that. I hated that party. It really was the worst until you showed up. It was the best night of my life though because I met you. I get things wrong a lot. You know that- you know me better than anyone else, so forgive me for last night. It was ill-timed. But despite all the wrong I do, and will continue to do, I’ll love you all my life if you only let me. 

He falters on it. He doesn’t like the wording, doesn’t like himself shown so nakedly. But it’s Grantaire, the boy he loves, and he hits send before he can overthink. His signal’s weak, but he ignores it and gets a book out, intent on reading until he gets a reply.  
He never realises that the message doesn’t send. 

University is good to Enjolras in a way secondary school couldn’t be. He doesn’t forget Grantaire- how could he? But he sometimes slips his mind. He becomes a friend he used to have, a good friend, an old friend. He becomes the topic of anecdotes and the picture he scrolls past on Instagram; he becomes a memory.  
Politics is the air he breathes, it is so exhilarating to think about all the things he can change, all the future ahead of him. He thinks about the world Grantaire painted for them when he was younger. Where summer lasted forever, and no one died or was treated poorly. How the light shined on everyone and everything. He thinks about how strong Grantaire’s picture of it was, and how hard it’ll be to become reality. 

(At this moment, unknown to Enjolras, Grantaire is with Jack, a worse Montparnasse. Jack takes his bottle, swallows it whole, and leaves it empty, used, behind him.)

He does a year abroad in Paris. He writes a dissertation on the European Union, thinking fuck Brexit for every word of it. His passion is everywhere, but also nowhere. Politics is brilliant, he loves it, really does- thinking about the changes he can make- but he also feels empty. He wonders if this is what adulthood is. Going through the motions. He finishes his final exams. He hands in his dissertation. He gets the train home. It’s the anti-climax. It’s the tiny Berkshire village he’s returning to. It’s how big everything else seems, but how much bigger the word home is. 

The train from Edinburgh changes at Durham. The cathedral looms in the distance, the castle looks soft lit up in the dark. The too-bright lights of the train car jar with it. He thinks about Grantaire. Summer in a bottle, like dandelion wine.  
And then Grantaire is there- older obviously, but distinctly him. Like he’d conjured him out of memory and forced him into being. But no, there’s something wilted in Grantaire that he would never bring back.  
And does he want to see Grantaire? He misses him of course, with an ache he can barely comprehend, but it’s a wound. He’d told him he loved him. Yes, it was a text. Yes, it was messy and not at all the sort of thing Grantaire deserved. But it was ignored.  
He returns his eyes to the window. He won’t look again. He can’t. But-  
“My Enj?” that voice says, “Enjolras! Right before me!?”  
And Enjolras’s wasted heart would love him through anything.  
He looks up again. Grantaire looks good, well, his body does. He’s obviously been to the gym a lot. He’ll find out as they sit together for the long journey home that it was boxing, fencing, and dancing- the little spark of Grantaire’s young love of learning returning in little ways, smaller than he might’ve hoped.  
They’re a little awkward now. It’s hard to speak across a four-year distance, but here they are, sitting across from each other.  
“I thought about you a bit during second year,” Grantaire says with a nonchalance Enjolras could never manage.  
“So did I,” but Grantaire laughs him off.  
“No, I mean, thanks, but I took this optional module on linguistics and the gender debate and suddenly I was getting firsts in all my essays after all your feminist preaching.”  
Grantaire seems to forget, of course, that it wasn’t Enjolras who’d walked their secondary school loudly proclaiming that gender equality should be a reality. Grantaire, it seems, forgets a lot of things.  
“that’s great” Enjolras falters- awkward as if Grantaire isn’t his oldest friend. (perhaps he isn’t anymore? Perhaps- but no. Grantaire will always be his friend)  
Grantaire smiles, “and what about you?” he looks earnest, but the twinkle of his eye seems so faded that he can’t help but wonder just what has happened to his Grantaire.  
“I did well at uni” he admits, “made some friends, got a first, my favourite professor gave me all these contacts for jobs so, seems like I’m all set”  
“seems like you are.”  
“and you? Career in sight?”  
“You know me, I never know what I’m doing”, his grin is bashful, but it’s sad too.  
“well,” he starts awkwardly, “whatever you end up doing, you’ll be great.”  
“I don’t think so.”  
“I do.” 

They keep being stopped by the strength of their previous connection. Every innocuous topic results in that same awful ache he’s tried to forget for four years.  
““I met Jehan at Durham- he’s poetic as fuck and an absolute darling. You’ll love him more than me within a week!”  
“I could never,” is all he can answer.  
Grantaire looks at him intently. He drops his grin as if loosening a tie, and he says, “God I’ve missed you, my Enj. You don’t even know.”  
“I think I do.”  
They stay looking at each other. Sizing each other up. Grantaire definitely looks older. But Enjolras is still not sure as to whether it’s a good thing. He’s appreciative and wary of the muscles that now seem to stretch his shirt, but the eyebags worry him.  
Grantaire’s hand reaches out, tentatively. When he was younger everything was bold and assertive, overconfident. Here he seems shy. His fingers graze Enjolras’s shirt and all he wants is to feel him on his skin. To touch him. To know him intimately again- not through sex, they never got that far, but to regain that easy closeness they’d once shared. He doesn’t know why he does it, but suddenly his own hand reaches, and their fingers glance each other and then hold tight. It must look stupid. But it feels closer than Enjolras has ever felt to another person.

Finally, four hours into the journey, the distance breaks. For some reason- the build-up of four years without an answer or just the way the light softens Grantaire’s hair- Enjolras blurts out the question that’s been on his lips for four years.  
“Why did you never reply?”  
“to what?” and Enjolras can’t quite hide the wince.  
“never mind” and he turns.  
“Enj- reply to what?”  
He’s a few steps away. He could very easily just keep going, perhaps never see Grantaire again but that was never an option, was it?  
“I texted you the morning we left, I texted and I told you I loved you and you never replied”  
Grantaire looks dumbstruck.  
“you loved me?”  
“you didn’t even read it?”  
“Enj,” he whispers, “my Enj,” and then softer, “Enjolras, I never received your text.”  
“But-“  
“What did it say?”  
He’s got the blasted thing memorised. He conjures up the bravery he used to send the text. Fuck it, he thinks again.  
He can’t bear to look at him. He keeps his eyes on his shoes. Focuses on the dirt from one of his morning runs. “I said I’ve loved you since we met. I said you remind me of childhood but more than that, you remind me of the good things in life. I said I get things wrong a lot, that you know that better than anyone. That I’m sorry for that night. It was ill-timed and stupid, but I wasn’t lying. I said that-“ he finally stumbles. He swallows. “I said despite all the wrong I do, and will continue to do, I’ll love you all my life if you-“ he looks up, finally, “if you only let me.”  
The monster of Grantaire’s reaction he’s created, is a smile, shining eyes, and a hand reaching.  
“Say it again,” Grantaire demands.  
“I love you,” he says, “I’m not sure how you haven’t noticed, but I do. I have for years”  
“are you sure?”  
“definite.”  
“even if I’m no longer brilliant?”  
“I still think you’re brilliant.”  
“but-“  
“but nothing. You either return my feelings or you don’t. You can’t deny the feelings are there though”  
Grantaire laughs. “I can deny many things, but if you say so…”. he nudges his foot, and then plasters himself to him.  
They return to silence. Enjolras returns to the window. The sun glimmers through the clouds. He looks back at Grantaire.  
“I love you too, you know,” he says. The sun seems to blaze out of his face. 

Summer passes in a haze of brightness and stress. Without the structure of school and university, he panics about what to do next. He tries out all the contacts. He gets an internship. He buys a bouquet that Grantaire laughs at when Grantaire says he’s doing a PhD. “I’m going to be a hot professor,” Grantaire decides, and Enjolras is perfectly happy living out that fantasy.  
His parents don’t kick him out when he says he’s gay, but they look at him oddly, and Christmas day at Grantaire’s is all he’s ever wished for. The warmth, the light, it’s like finally being home.  
“Do you really love me?” Grantaire asks stupidly earnest in his fluffy Christmas jumper, tinsel wrapped into a crown on his curls.  
Enjolras looks at him. He lets him look back.  
“I adore you” he says simply, even as he knows Grantaire won’t believe it “more than anything in the world.”  
he might not believe it, but surprised smile is brighter than any of the lights of the tree. 

They move in together. London- or, well, they call it London. It’s on the outskirts, it’s cheap enough and close enough. Enjolras loves it because Grantaire’s beside him. (Grantaire tries to ignore the way the city’s stench makes him feel.)  
it’s here though, in this tiny flat, that things fall apart.  
Enjolras doesn’t know it, of course. He’s smiling. He feels like he’s dancing walking home to Grantaire.  
He’s never felt so happy as when they’re lying in bed together. He’s warm. He’s happy. And then Grantaire speaks up, and Enjolras can feel how stiff he is.  
“Do you want to fuck me?” he asks, quiet and tired. Enjolras flinches.  
“Not right now,” Enjolras says, “I just want to hold your hand.”  
Grantaire stiffens. Enjolras panics.  
“Not that I wouldn’t like to” he hastens to add, “I’m just tired and well, a hand feels more intimate than a dick” he flushes brightly, “that did not sound right at all, but-“  
“I get it,” Grantaire says, “thank you.”  
“For what?”  
“For wanting this more than that.”  
It’s vague. But he understands.  
Their hands stay together through the night. 

The next morning, Grantaire tells him about Jack.  
“There was a boy in Durham,” he starts, “Jack, and he reminded me of you. He loved the light and he loved people and he thought humanity was worth saving. And he indulged in the dark when he wanted something an I, I- I was grasping at straws- at anything. He wanted my body and that’s it and.” He’s shaking slightly. “He told me that was all anyone would want.”  
“He lied.”  
“No. I can’t believe that. He was so good, so bright, so bold, so. light- how could someone like that be bad, lie?”  
“He wasn’t good then.”  
“But-“  
“If he said those things, he wasn’t good.”  
They stay silent. Enjolras thinks maybe they’ve fixed it, maybe Grantaire get better, get the light he deserves.  
“we’re not good together- you know it, too” Grantaire says, and it steals all the words from him, “there’s a significant imbalance of feelings and it’s awkward.”  
He’d thought they were just going to ignore the reality of Enjolras’s awkward- has it really been fifteen years?- long-lasting crush. But here it is. The imbalance as he calls it.  
“I mean, I get that,” he stutters, “but I think the fact that I’ve loved you since I was ten would improve a relationship not ruin it.”  
Grantaire chokes. “You what?”  
“I mean it only means I’ve loved you longer and that’s fine with me. I’m just content with whatever you’re willing to give me. I’m stupid over you, Grantaire, but if you only want to be friends-“  
“Enj, stop.”  
His rambling peters out.  
“you can’t have loved me that long- I went through such a change!”  
“And I loved you through it all. I thought we went through this? The text? I’ve loved you since I was ten!?”  
“But- I was brilliant, Enj, and then I wasn’t. I can’t compare to ten-year-old me.”  
“Do you know why I fight so hard?”  
“What? Because you’re a stubborn git.”  
“No,” he laughs, cutting through the tension, “It’s because I want to make the world as beautiful as you once told me. Believe me, I have loved you for a very long time.”  
Grantaire looks like he wants to argue. Opens his mouth to do so- and then stops himself. “Me too,” he whispers. “I thought you knew; I was so obvious about it.”  
“No you weren’t!”  
It’s Grantaire’s turn to laugh. “I called you ‘my angel’? how obvious can you get? The possessive pronoun, the ‘angel’ bit?”  
“But you called me Enj, not angel?”  
“It was a pun,” Grantaire confesses, “French, I was very proud.”  
He feels incredibly stupid, to have missed it all along. “So every time you called me ‘your Enj’, what you really meant was-“  
“I love you, yes.”  
Enjolras laughs. “We’re a mess, you and me.”  
“Just a little bit.”  
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”  
Grantaire grins. “Me neither.”  
And the warmth returns. 

“God I hate London,” Grantaire says like it doesn’t even matter.  
“I thought you wanted to see the future. London’s the future.”  
“Ugh,” is the eloquent response, “London is messy and horrible and there’s politicians everywhere and men in suits and ties and collars and buttons and it’s so restricted”  
“We could move?” he suggests.  
“But you love it,” Grantaire says gently. “and I would suffer many things worse than London to make you smile.”  
Enjolras smiles. 

They’re happy. So happy in fact that when Grantaire asks him finally “do you want a drink?” as they lie next to each other, he says “No, I’m good.”  
Instead, he takes the bottle from Grantaire’s hand and pushes it gently into his mouth. Grantaire’s lips find purchase around the rim, and as he swallows, he looks into Enjolras’s eyes.  
He taps Enjolras’s wrist before the bottle is finished. His lips pull on the glass as it’s removed. “Drink the rest,” he demands and Enjolras does.  
His eyes remain, as ever, on Grantaire. 

The glass, when it’s placed, doesn’t seem abandoned or used up in any vulgar way. It looks satisfied, like it’s been enjoyed. (Looking at it, Grantaire wonders vaguely whether it would look nice on his bookshelf. He laughs it off.)

But it grates on him, the London thing. The hint of insecurity. The attempt to always do as he asks. He loves Grantaire happy and sad, but he misses the boldness, the strength in him.  
“Fuck it let’s move,” he says one day, “you hate it, and I would need much more than London to force you to stay.”

The new flat is close to Berkshire. It’s one room, shared, with bookshelves all around them. On one an empty bottle sits, with dandelions smiling out of it, facing towards the sun even now.  
“I love you,” Enjolras says nearly every day.  
And soon, the response becomes “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- The idea of dandelion wine being summer in a bottle is blatantly stolen from Ray Bradbury’s ‘Dandelion Wine’. Mentioning this because the book is a beautifully nostalgic story of childhood and one, I recommend.  
> \- The title, which yeah, took on a life of its own, is actually from the first episode of Fleabag season 2. Don’t @ me.  
> \- All literary interpretations are my own. But I, like Enjolras, have never read any D H Lawrence so the comment on sexual symbolism actually comes from ‘How to read literature like a professor’ by Thomas C Foster.  
> \- The “my Enj”/”my ange” pun was based on Little Women where Jo calls Laurie “my boy”  
> \- Yes, the last line was a Star Wars reference, thought it’d be a subtle call back to the start where everyone thinks everyone else is cool based on whether they like Star Wars or not. But also? Shows the progression of their relationship.  
> \- Was the bottle thing meant to symbolise sex? Yes. It was. Pls don’t judge. xD
> 
> p.s I'm sorry I killed Gavroche :/


End file.
